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11.
Now we have a reserve of $150 billion and that's rather sound. It's not excessive certainly. And by the year 2000, there will be $300 billion dollars. But maybe after 1997 we would have other major plans in the pipeline. We don't know yet. Of course the Financial Secretary will always give a forecast for next year. But right now we don't have any major new projects to come on stream. We're just talking about projects already on going. So that's why by the year 2000 we will have over $300 billion in reserve. That's a fact.
But then every year we may have new plans and we need to review our economic situation every year. As to when would be the time to use the reserves, in 1995-96, for instance, we did dip into the reserve because we had a deficit budget. So we have to look at the trend growth rate of the economy to control our expenditure. Now we have a trend growth rate of 5% and we plan our expenditure accordingly. If we have less expenditure then we may have a surplus. But as in 1995-96 for instance our average growth rate was 4.6% and that's below 5%, we have a deficit. That's why, then we would use the reserves. So it doesn't mean that when we have money we must spend it. Otherwise we will have a deficit budget every time.
As I said, a deficit budget for 1996-97 goes against one of the major principles. That is why we must avoid a deficit budget in 1996-97as far as possible.
Question (? speaker - in Cantonese): Mr Tsang, talking about family values in your Budget. Now this is Chinese values and it is only a Chinese Financial Secretary who will come up with such a concept - would you agree?
And then here we also have allowances for siblings. Have you got actual cases that have led to such proposals?
FS (in Cantonese): As I have said the Budget is not my sole efforts. It's actually team work and I will not claim total credit for it. But then, of course, different Financial Secretaries will have different views on this and I'm not the first in starting to give more allowances for the family. Sir Hamish started with the disabled, single parent allowances and with more allowances for the family. But of course my upbringing has also influenced this.
Question (? speaker - in Cantonese): You talk about improving, helping the industrial sector and also promoting the services sector and you also talk about you have to discuss these with the Chinese side. With all these concepts, how far do you think these can be implemented and how much are we talking about?